One of the Greek world’s earliest scientists, on the gunky nature of everything.
The Presocratic philosophers are famously strange and difficult; but of all of them, Anaxagoras, who saw the universe as essentially gunky, is one of the strangest.
Anaxagoras: Life
Anaxagoras was born into a wealthy family around the year 500 BCE in the city of Clazomenae, close to present-day Izmir on the coast of Turkey. When he was around twenty years old, he left Clazomenae for Athens. Accounts of why he moved to Athens differ: but some commentators claim that he left home because he was afraid that wealth and political power would get in the way of his pursuit of knowledge. …
One of history’s most overlooked women philosophers
Introduction
Welcome to the first ever Philosopher File interview! In this interview, I’m talking to Anna Ezekiel, a philosopher originally from Scotland and now based in Hong Kong. Since 2014, Anna has worked as an independent scholar, living with ME / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She has a particular interest in German women philosophers.
Anna’s hugely readable and enjoyable translation of Karoline von Günderrode’s Poetic Fragments was published by SUNY Press 2016, and she is currently working on a further book of translations by Günderrode called Philosophical Fragments. …
The wandering Greek philosopher and poet who reimagined the nature of the gods.
Life
Xenophanes (c. 570 BCE — c. 478 BCE) came from the Ionian city of Colophon. He was a poet, a philosopher and an itinerant wanderer, who roamed around Ancient Greece from city to city, and sung his verses like a philosophical busker.
We don’t know a lot for certain about Xenophanes’s long life. He is said to have been teacher to the philosopher Parmenides. He may have been sold into slavery, and later released. Somewhere along the way, he seems to have had two sons, both of whom he outlived (and whom, one text says, “he buried with his own hands”). …
What is wisdom, why does it matter, and how do we cultivate it?
Welcome
We may aspire to being wise. We may think that wisdom is something worth having. But when you start to ask deeper questions about wisdom, it becomes more puzzling. What is wisdom (if it is anything at all)? How does it matter (if it matters)? And how do we cultivate it (if it is the kind of thing you can cultivate at all)?
In an everyday sense, we seem to have a pretty good grasp of what we mean when we talk about wisdom. When we see somebody clambering over the barrier in the zoo to cuddle the gorilla, we think, “That seems remarkably unwise.” …
One of China’s earliest women philosophers, on weaving and politics
Jing Jiang is one of the earliest women in Chinese recorded history to engage in philosophical debate. She was a thinker with a keen grasp of politics, and a considerable skill in argument.
Life
Far-ranging wisdom
Jing Jiang was a Chinese philosopher who was born in the state of Lu around 540 BCE. She appears in the Discourses of the States, or Guoyu, a text that dates to between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. …
The philosopher who argued nothing ever changes
Parmenides is one of the most elusive and enigmatic of all early Greek philosophers. Could he really have been arguing that nothing ever changed? And if so, why?
Life
Parmenides was a philosopher from the city of Elea, a Greek colony on the Italian peninsula. He was born some time around 515 BCE into a wealthy family. It was said that he had a sharp legal mind, and he was responsible for drawing up the laws of the city. …
The beginnings of Indian philosophy
Yājñavalkya is one of the earliest named Indian philosophers. According to traditional accounts, he was a fierce debater, and was preoccupied with the nature of the ātman, or the soul.
Telling tales about the sages
There is considerable debate about whether Yājñavalkya is a historical figure or a literary creation (see the Philosopher File on Diotima). If there was a historical figure called Yājñavalkya, his dates would be some time around the 7th century BCE. …
Cultivating the forests of our virtues
The forgotten sage
A decade ago, I took a trip to the town of Zoucheng in China’s Shandong province, to visit the Chinese philosopher-sage Mencius, or Mengzi (372–289 BCE). I went there because I was fascinated by his insights into human life. And because I wanted to find out more about what I have come to see as his programme of “ethical rewilding.”
Mengzi is a Confucian philosopher, but today he is almost entirely eclipsed by his predecessor. Bryan W. …
I’m spending my Sunday thinking about writing, which isn’t quite the same as spending my Sunday writing, although it isn’t completely different.
What I’m thinking about in particular is what…
The first scientist
The philosopher Anaximander was born in the trading port of Miletus in 610 BCE, and is said to have become a student of the philosopher Thales. His philosophy explored questions of creation and destruction in nature, and he is considered by some to be one of the first scientists.
Life
The first scientist?
The philosopher Anaximander was born in the trading port of Miletus in 610 BCE, and is said to have become a student of the philosopher Thales. He was fascinated by processes of generation and destruction in the natural world. …
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